Pressure-sensitive adhesives are adhesives with specific characteristics such as aggressive and permanent tack, adherence with no more than finger pressure, sufficient ability to hold onto an adherend, and sufficient cohesive strength to be removed cleanly from the adherend. As applications for pressure-sensitive adhesives have increased substantially in recent years, performance requirements have become more demanding.
While a variety of natural and synthetic elastomeric materials have been included in pressure-sensitive adhesives, the use of (meth)acrylic-based elastomeric material is widespread due to a number of beneficial properties. In addition to providing the desired degree of adhesion and cohesion, (meth)acrylic-based elastomeric materials often can be tailored to provide other desirable characteristics such as elasticity, tackiness, transparency, resistance to light and oxidation, and the like. (Meth)acrylic-based elastomeric materials have been described, for example, in the following patent references: EP Patent Application 2072594 A1 (Kondou et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 5,648,425 (Everaerts et al.), U.S. Pat. No. 6,777,079 B2 (Zhou et al.), and U.S. Patent Application Publication 2011/04486 A1 (Ma et al.).
(Meth)acrylic-based elastomeric materials used in pressure-sensitive adhesive compositions are typically derived from petroleum feedstocks. Higher oil prices have led to volatile supplies of (meth)acrylic-based elastomeric materials and/or monomers used to prepare the (meth)acrylic-based elastomeric materials. It is desirable to replace all or part of the petroleum-based feedstocks with those derived from renewable sources such as plants. The replacement of petroleum-based materials with plant-based materials can be both economically and socially beneficial.